


At Long Last

by Anonymous



Category: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Genre: Feelings Realization, Getting Together, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26413918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Perry starts dating a guy. A nice guy. A guy Harry likes.Perry seems happy. Turns out Harry would just prefer he was happy withhim.
Relationships: Harry Lockhart/Perry van Shrike
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: Anonymous, pine4pine 2020





	At Long Last

**Author's Note:**

  * For [m_madeleine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_madeleine/gifts).



When Perry started dating, Harry officially hated it. 

Okay, so maybe not _officially_. Official hate would've probably involved actually telling Perry that he hated it, which kinda seemed like overkill when the subject of the aforementioned dating was actually a pretty nice guy. Grudgingly, he was a pretty nice guy. He was head of wardrobe for some fancy-schmancy movie studio and worked hours just as totally nuts as the two of them did as PIs and when he came over, he was so goddamn charming that Harry couldn't hate him. He'd've liked to, but he didn't.

He hated that suddenly Perry wasn't around as much, though. No late-night movies he'd talk over until Perry told him to shut the fuck up. No trips to the store and arguing all the way up and down six aisles over whether frozen pizza really counted as pizza until Harry caved and put it back. No good wine with dinner until Harry couldn't stand drinking the crappy stuff anymore because sure, what he needed was a not-cheap wine habit.

But he guessed Perry did, at least, seem kinda happy. Sometimes. When he wasn't looking at Harry with that unimpressed judgmental face like he'd just said something so dumb Perry wasn't totally sure how to explain it to him in words that were small enough, though he guessed that look had gotten marginally less ascerbic. And he liked that Perry seemed happy, but he also kinda hated that, too, which totally made him a shitty kind of a person. 

Except, well, it wasn't like he wanted Perry to go wallow in misery until the end of time. It wasn't like he wanted him to be unhappy at all; pretty much the opposite was true, in fact. And, one night when Perry had just gotten in from dinner with his annoyingly goddamn perfect date, Harry craned his neck over the back of the couch and saw them kiss. Which was right about when he realized that sure, yeah, he wanted Perry to be happy. He was just pretty sure he wanted Perry to be happy _with him_.

"So, you like to watch?" Perry said, arms crossed over his chest, as he looked over at Harry. And maybe Harry would've apologized or something but Perry didn't actually look pissed.

Harry scrunched up his face and then turned back to the TV. "Don't flatter yourself, Perry," he replied. "You're not that good looking, man." 

"So you think I'm unattractive?"

Harry made an entirely different face, which made it really hard to concentrate on the television. Not that he was concentrating on the television. The movie he would've talked over if there'd been anyone there to listen had gone ahead and finished, anyway.

"I mean, I guess you're not _un_ attractive..." he said. 

"So you think I'm attractive?"

"I guess some people might?"

"Some people do." Perry gestured to the door. "One of them just left." 

Harry made _another_ face. Which involved slumping so far down on the couch that he was practically on the floor and still, somehow, not managing to sink straight through it. 

"Well, I'm not gay," he said. "I think he might be?"

The back of the couch shifted slightly as Perry leaned against it. Harry looked up from his weird-ass position, back on the seat, neck scrunched up against the cushions, as Perry leaned over and peered at him. He peered at him real closely. It made Harry's insides feel kinda squirmy and his cheeks turned kinda warm, like whenever Harmony had looked at him back in the day. 

"No, you're not," Perry said, then he pushed himself away from the back of the couch and walked away abruptly. Harry turned and groaned into the couch seat then fell right onto the floor, which he guessed kinda served him right. 

In the morning, it was weird. Weirder than usual, that was, 'cause every day Harry spent dicking around playing Private Dick was kinda weird, given he was actually getting better at it all as time went on. Turned out Perry wasn't only a great consultant but he made a pretty great teacher (when he wasn't rolling his eyes so hard they might as well've been dice) and a pretty great investigator and sure so the work was kinda tedious sometimes, but it wasn't the worst thing Harry had ever done for cash. It'd been six months and they'd been working together and living together and yeah, so Harry kept telling himself, and telling Harmony, and telling Perry, and telling any-goddamn-body who'd listen that he was totally gonna get his own place, soon, real soon, but the fact was he hadn't. He hadn't even looked.

That morning, he started wondering why that was. The answer came back: you're into the guy, you colossal dumbass. 

He kinda liked the work, and he really didn't want to give it up, but it was weird drinking coffee there over the files together, working out which of them was going to take the photograph-the-cheating-husband gig and who was going to try to find the rich guy's runaway au pair. Harry was too freaked out by his recent realization to argue: he took the cheating husband though he really didn't want to spend forty minutes taking Polaroids of some Porsche-driving douchebag's unfaithful junk, and Perry frowned at him. He slapped the back of one hand straight to Harry's forehead and said, "I'm pretty sure you're sick but your temperature's fine..."

Harry flinched. Perry's eyes narrowed. He put his hands on his hips and cocked his head. 

"You know, it's not catching," Perry said. Harry frowned so hard one of his eyes scrunched up like maybe he was auditioning for the part of Pirate #2 and he'd left his eyepatch in his other pantaloons. "Being gay," Perry clarified. "It's not catching." 

Harry bit his lip. He ran his hands over his hair. He shook his head, kinda wobbled it about on top of his neck like that might rearrange his brain into something that worked the way he remembered it had before he'd come out to LA. Then he said, "Sure, I know that." He sighed. He smiled. It probably looked like someone was taking a nice new headshot while Harmony stood on his foot in a six-inch stiletto. "But I think maybe I did?"

Perry laughed, which he was pretty sure wasn't the ideal response to coming out. But then he pulled Harry in by the front of his shirt and kissed him straight on the mouth. That was a better reaction, at least.

"Well, it sure took you long enough," Perry said. "I thought I was going to have to marry the guy before you realized you're into me."

Harry groaned. He dropped his forehead down against Perry's shoulder. 

"Actor?" he said. 

"Ex," he replied. "Owes me a favor. But yeah, also an actor."

And really, all that was left for Harry to do was roll his eyes and kiss him. He figured practice would make perfect.

Maybe it wasn't the way he'd planned it to go. Maybe he hadn't had a plan at all. But Perry didn't seem to mind; after all, if he'd've minded, he'd've kicked his ass out of his house months ago. 

And Harry was pretty sure he was never getting a place of his own.


End file.
